Picture Tree Int’l To Launch Marc Rothemund’s Father & Son, Autism, Soccer Club Comedy-Drama ‘Weekend Rebels’ At EFM; Unveils First Image

Geri Horner is a doting mum to two children, daughter Bluebell and son Monty, and while she shares her son with husband Christian, her daughter has a different father.In 2005, the Spice Girls singer dated screenwriter and director Sacha Gervasi, who is known for films like The Terminal and Hitchcock. Although the pair went their separate ways after just six weeks, Geri ended up giving birth to their daughter in May 2006.Want to know more about Sacha? Then read on…WATCH: Geri Horner celebrates England's win alongside daughter BluebellSacha has written and directed many films that have been critically acclaimed, including Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which focuses on Canadian rock group Anvil, and My Dinner with Herve, a biopic based on the life of The Man with the Golden Gun star based off of interviews he had done with Sacha.Ahead of getting into the film business, Sacha was a journalist with The Mail on Sunday, and he even proved his own musical ability by being the drummer for a band fronted by Gavin Rossdale, the ex-husband of Gwen Stefani.READ: Geri Halliwell and husband Christian joined by surprise royal guests during romantic date nightSacha is also related to some high-profile names with his grandfather being journalist Frank Gervasi, who reported on the German conquests of Belgium, the Netherlands and France during World War II.Frank would go on to marry singer Georgia Gibbs, known for songs like Kiss of Fire, although she is not Sacha's biological grandmother.

Jon Burlingame It’s anybody’s game: this is a rare year when any of the five original-score nominees could win the Oscar. Two of the nominees are previous winners, two more are past nominees; only one is a newcomer, and it’s a three-man ensemble. Four films are period pieces: an admired German-language war film, a character study set against the Irish civil war, an epic of late 1920s Hollywood, and a coming-of-age story for a young filmmaker in the ‘50s and ‘60s; the fifth is a wild, anarchic tale of a Chinese American family that saves the universe. And the nominees are:

BBC Studios is gearing up for next week’s Showcase event by signing a global first-look deal with former Warner Bros. Australia TV boss Shaun Murphy.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “A Man Called Otto,” a heartfelt drama starring Tom Hanks as a cranky widower, has notched an important box office milestone, crossing $100 million globally. The film’s tally stands at $100.4 million, including $61.2 million in North America and $39.2 million internationally. Overseas, the top-selling markets are the United Kingdom ($6.28 million), Australia ($5.17 million), Mexico ($5.06 million), Spain ($2.6 million) and Germany ($2.5 million). In pandemic times, the $100 million benchmark is notable because only a few movies aimed at older audiences, such as Baz Luhrmann’s kaleidoscopic biopic “Elvis,” Tom Cruise’s sequel “Top Gun: Maverick,” Brad Pitt’s action-comedy “Bullet Train,” have managed to connect the box office since COVID.

EXCLUSIVE: In a seven-figure deal finalised over the last week, Sony Pictures’ Stage 6 Films has beaten out competitors for UK rights to Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid, which A24 is releasing in the U.S. on April 21.

Dame Helen Mirren ditched her signature bob for ageless platinum waves as she attended the Berlin premiere of Golda.The actress, who last year admitted to still loving her former boyfriend, Liam Neeson, stunned as she attended the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival in Germany on Monday and was pictured with long flowing hair extensions. Helen, 77, sported an off-the-shoulder floor-length black dress that featured a low-cut ruffled neckline, which she paired with gold chandelier earrings as she walked the red carpet.

K.J. Yossman Joseph Fiennes is set to play England soccer manager Gareth Southgate in a new play written by “Sherwood” scribe James Graham. Fiennes, known for his turns in “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Shakespeare in Love,” will take on the role at London’s National Theatre. “Spring Awakening” director Rupert Goold will helm the production. “It’s time to change the game,” reads the logline. “The country that gave the world football has since delivered a painful pattern of loss. Why can’t England’s men win at their own game?”

EXCLUSIVE: JoJo Siwa has signed on to star opposite Jade Pettyjohn (Little Fires Everywhere) in the horror-thriller All My Friends Are Dead from Saw 3D writer Marcus Dunstan.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent German powerhouse ZDF Studios and U.K.-based Factual Fiction are reteaming for “#DorianGray,” an updated social media spin on Oscar Wilde’s classic, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” In Wilde’s original, first published as a novella in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, the self-besotted Dorian Gray sells his soul in exchange for eternal youth, a picture painted of him recording the decay of his soul as in outward appearance he remains physically forever young.  Currently being written by Maiya John, a young London-based screenwriter, the contemporary reimagining is described by ZDF Studios as “a suspenseful ride through the life of a teenager as they construct their identity.” 

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor A pair of Oscar bellwether ceremonies took place this weekend, heralding uncertainty and unpredictability to an awards season where no one agrees on what contenders will end up taking home Academy Awards. The DGA Awards, which has historically matched up best with the eventual winner of best director, chose the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. They’re the third directing team to win in the DGA’s 75-year history (after Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for “West Side Story” and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for “No Country for Old Men”). Only eight DGA winners have failed to walk away with the Academy Award in the same season, with the last instance being Sam Mendes (“1917”), who won at DGA but lost to Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”) at the 2020 Oscars.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Luc Besson’s ”Dogman,” starring Caleb Landry Jones, wowed buyers at the Berlin’s European Film Market, where it was screened for select buyers. “We hosted only one private screening of the completed film and buyers were stunned, they all came out saying that it was Luc Besson’s best film to date, his most mature movie and some even called it a masterpiece,” said Gregoire Melin, founder of Kinology, which is handling sales on the film. On the heels of the screening, Kinology closed deals with some of the biggest distributors in key international territories, including Italy (Lucky Red), Germany and Austria (Capelight Pictures), Spain and Latin America (Sun Distribution Group), Scandinavia (Svensk Filmindustri), Benelux (Belga Films), Switzerland (Elite Film), Middle East (Front Row), Poland (Monolith), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo Audiovisuais), Czech Republic and Slovakia (AQS) and former Yugoslavia (Blitz).

“Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” is already getting fans buzzing at the box office.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” dominated the Korean box office charts over the latest weekend with a $4.91 million opening weekend. Nationwide box office rose to $9.78 million, up from $7.85 million a week earlier. The film played on over 2,000 screens and enjoyed a 50.1% market share between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council. The film earned $7.1 million in its full five day run since opening on Wednesday. “Quantumania” landed ahead of “The First Slam Dunk,” the Japanese animation that opened at the beginning of the year and had taken the top spot for the previous two weeks. “Slam Dunk” earned $2.17 million, another strong hold, and down from $2.67 million the previous weekend. Its cumulative total since Jan. 4 stands at $26 million.

“Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” is already getting fans buzzing at the box office.

EXCLUSIVE: Black Bear International has closed a raft of international deals on EFM titles Longlegs and Fred & Ginger, we can reveal. The two projects were among the most in-demand with foreign buyers and the deals account for the lion’s share of each film’s budget.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Paris-based Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese says making the Berlin Film Festival competition cut with his first feature, “Disco Boy,” which toplines German star Franz Rogowski (“Passages,” ”Undine”), is “certainly a dream come true.” But he also points out that his remarkable debut was a long time coming.  A graduate of several film schools, including France’s prestigious Le Fresnoy, Abbruzzese started developing “Disco Boy” in 2013 following an encounter in a French disco with a classical dancer who had been a soldier.  

Ed Meza @edmezavar Lars Kraume, who explores Germany’s 19th-century, bloody colonization of Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia) in his latest work, “Measures of Men,” has lined up his next project, a feature film inspired by a California prison program that brings together young inmates with aging prisoners suffering from dementia. Developed at the California Men’s Colony State Prison in San Luis Obispo, the Gold Coat program selects inmates, known as Gold Coats, to assist severely cognitively impaired inmates. Kraume’s story is set in a Berlin prison with a multi-ethnic population, where a young man signs up for the program in an effort to get early parole only to realize that he has first the first time in his life started to love and care for someone.

The 3x Oscar-nominated Damien Chazelle directed early Hollywood epic, Babylon, will hit Paramount+ on Feb. 21 in U.S and Canada, which is 61 days after its theatrical window.

Hello and welcome back to your weekly International Insider. Berlin’s back and with most of our team in the German capital, it’s Jesse Whittock here bringing you the latest from the worlds of TV and film.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Picture Tree Intl. has boarded Berlin Film Festival title “Measures of Men,” which focuses on the genocide committed by the German army against the Ovaherero and Nama tribes in Southwestern Africa. The trailer debuts (below). The film is written and directed by Lars Kraume, whose credits include Berlin’s “The Silent Revolution” and Toronto’s “The People vs. Fritz Bauer.” It stars Leonard Scheicher (“The Silent Revolution,” “Das Boot” TV series), Namibian actor Girley Charlene Jazama and “Toni Erdmann” star Peter Simonischek. The film has its world premiere on Feb. 22 in the Berlinale Special section, and will be released in Germany by Studiocanal in late March.